How should we remember Ralph Klein?

"We remember what a force of personality he was, how driven he was, how motivated he was, how straightforward he was, and that we trusted him implicitly." – Alberta Premier Alison Redford

"While Ralph's beliefs about the role of government and fiscal responsibility were once considered radical, it is perhaps his greatest legacy that these ideas are now widely embraced across the political spectrum." - Stephen Harper

Condolences and praise poured in for former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, who passed away on Friday at the age of 70.

As the compliments poured in, it must be remembered that Klein was one of Canada's most aggressive neo-liberals. He served as premier of Alberta from 1992 to 2006. A blustering, error-prone alcoholic, Klein was forgiven for many of his personal blunders and escapades by frontier-mentality Albertans who believed in rugged individualism and small government.

No matter how rude or insulting Klein became, he was a darling of the mainstream media. When a drunken Premier berated poor unemployed men at midnight at a homeless shelter, telling them to get jobs and throwing money at them, he was forgiven by media and right-wingers because, well, it was Ralph and that's just the way he was.

However, the homeless shelter incident is a clear sign of how the establishment and its media viewed the plight of the poor with indifference.

Klein's true legacy is a string of anti-social policies and programs. Klein was possessed by the unnecessary goal of eliminating the debt in what was becoming the country's most wealthy province. In just over a decade he paid down the debt of $23-billion, killing the government pension plan, privatizing liquor stores and license offices, and cutting in critical areas such as health care, education and social services. Klein slashed thousands of job, and showed nothing but contempt for the tens-of-thousands of protestors who fought against his ideology-driven fanaticism.

Klein believed strongly that health care services should be provided by the private sector. His government moved to allow provincial health authorities to buy medical services from medical companies. The federal government, committed to national health care, reminded Klein of his government's commitments to deliver public health care. However, Klein cheated and allowed some questionable services to be created.

While Klein was considered a man of the people, he clearly favored the rich. He made Alberta the first jurisdiction in North America to replace a progressive income tax with a flat tax -- the dream of extreme right-wing ideologues in the U.S. In 2009, the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute said that the "flat tax," introduced in 2001, was costing the province in excess of $5-billion a year.

Questions arise about Klein's honesty. In 2004 -- when he was Premier -- Klein was accused of plagiarizing a paper for his degree in communications from the University of Athabasca. The Edmonton Journal reported that about five pages of a 13-page report on Chilean politics and media were lifted directly from various Internet sites. Surprisingly, Klein was given a grade of 77 per cent on the paper.

After eliminating the deficit, Klein basically flunked out of politics because he had no idea what else to do in government. When Klein needed a soft 'retirement' gig, it’s believed that about 20 of his wealthy oil and business friends chipped in to provide a $2.5-million anonymous gift to set up the Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies at Mount Royal. Students felt that Klein's appointment was a sick joke. Normally endowed chairs are limited to academics of considerable distinction. Klein didn't get off to a good start. The former premier -- who couldn't make it to his office before 10 a.m. -- said journalists were lazy. He said he didn't read newspapers or watch TV news.

Klein can be praised -- or blamed -- for the early development of the tar sands. In the mid-1990s, it was unclear whether the tar sands would become viable. When Ottawa introduced a tax write-off (i.e. a give away) for oil sands investment, Alberta allowed oil companies to pay a royalty of one per cent (i.e. a give away) until developers recovered all project costs.

According to environmentalists, nearly every tar sands project was approved without any consideration given to the impact on the environment or greenhouse gas emissions.

In many ways, Klein was a tragic figure. A stubborn buffoon, he never understood what should have been done in Alberta. He was a one-issue populist who got elected to eliminate the dragon deficit -- an unnecessary calling that damaged health care, education and social services so seriously they have not fully recovered.

Political leaders and journalists provided the usual hyperbole to describe a fallen man. Hopefully, history will do a better job of providing the true story of Ralph Klein.

Nick Fillmore is a freelance Toronto journalist and social activist who covered Canadian politics through the Klein era. Comments are welcome -- email fillmore0274[at]rogers[dot]com

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Klein was always more popular with the Marthas and Henrys of Alberta than with political insiders of many stripes. Even after the lean and hungry types within his own Progressive Conservative Party who had their eyes on his job started pushing him toward the door in 2006, engineering a 55-per-cent vote in a leadership review, his support among ordinary voters remained much stronger.